Free From Embers by Aaron Pogue Page B

were not unknown, but they were uncommon. And they were never that young.
    A sob escaped her. She ran on. A young dragon, and it was not alone. Its mother had come to protect it. Its mother who must have been sleeping for seven hundred years. Perhaps for longer. But she was awake. Her child was awake. And after so long, they must be hungry.
    She thought of her neighbor's sweet children at play in the yard. She thought of Gertrude and her crippled mother. She thought of the others in the village—she knew them all, and would call any one of them family.
    But none of them was Michael.
    She wept. Tears ran down her face. But she did not slow. She did not go back. She carried her child away and ran toward the only hope she could imagine.
     
     
    In a long, low building of rough-cut timbers and unfinished windows, the highest members of the Dauric Council sat in somber discussion around an immense table. The table, like the polished planks of the floor and the paneled interior walls, was fashioned from the wood of the beautiful and fragrant pines that grew on the mountains to the west. The fourteen throne-like chairs of the Council members, arranged in a slightly misshapen oval, had been carved from the trunks of fourteen mighty oaks and still stood rooted in the ground from which they had grown.
    A handsome wolf, the messenger that had summoned the Council members here, stood sentry by the single small door, his head tilted as though he were listening to something very far off. His coat was a deep gray, slashed here and there with creamy white. Two diamond studs, one in each ear, marked him as the Wolfhound, the pet and familiar of the Prince.
    One of the members in the far corner, Gunther, said in a huff, “Enough! You’ve all done your share of moaning and complaining! What is our purpose here? I hope I haven’t come a hundred leagues and left a deadfall sluice half-built just to hear you gripe like housewives.”
    Wotan leaned forward, and old Gunther fell still. Everyone in the room fell still. They looked to Wotan, and they waited. Some two hundred years old, Prince Wotan was so heavily built that he could easily have fought a dozen of the younger warriors. Nevertheless, he was credited more for his wisdom and forethought than his physical prowess, and not even the highest member of the Council would dare question his word. Under normal circumstances, anyway. For this very reason he seldom gave voice in a Council meeting, for he valued the wisdom of his peers. It had been more than twenty years since he had last spoken here, except for occasional mediation. Now, all heads turned toward him as he drew breath to speak.
    “Gunther,” he nodded to the angry dwarf, speaking in a slow and ceremonious baritone. “Members of the Dauric Council. My honorable brothers. I have called you here. There is trouble growing in the dwarven lands. We have all experienced much suffering these last few seasons. There have been too many setbacks. If we do not recognize the troubles upon us, they may well bury us in darkness. That is why I called you together."
    Gunther nearly answered. He had a temper like earthfire, but even he would not interrupt the Prince in Council. Still, Wotan turned to him. "No, Gunther. I understand your frustration, but it is only because this trouble has not yet reached your borders. But it shall spread southward all too soon. You have much worry yet to come. You would be better, we all would be better, if we faced these times united.”
    The Prince's words rang heavy, dismal, and for some time their shadow lay across the silent council hall. Then a muttering began, a sound of objection. It started small and built like an avalanche, and finally it was Gunther himself he rose to his feet and address the Prince directly.
    "We are united," he said. "Have we ever been divided? We are the Dauric Council. On my honor—"
    "On your honor," the Prince said, shaking his head slowly. He raised his hand in a pacifying